A Choice Made Paul Craig Roberts She gave up on young men after her first few dates. She wanted someone with the confidence and assuredness of her father and grandfather. “You have to give them a chance to grow up,” her mother said. But she didn’t want to wait. She wanted a grownup now. She was being taunted by several…
Read more »Times Change Out From Under Us Paul Craig Roberts He had lugged the 50 lb. bag of Milorganite into the garden in order to discover, as on many prior occasions, that he had nothing with which to open it. He blamed this on the war on terror and the TSA. As a youth he, as did every boy, had a…
Read more »UPDATE: Readers are asking if this is a news story. The answer is no. It is fiction that I wrote. However, I have learned that Nick Brandt has set up an anti-poaching operation in Africa. Go to this URL and scroll down to read about it. It is deserving of your support. I think sales of his book of African…
Read more »By: algol|06 April, 2012|Categories: Western Stories
The stagecoach bounced along the uneven trail through Indian lands. A year ago there would have been danger from Indians. But Ulysses Grant had sent General Philip Henry Sheridan, who had brought the horrors of war to Confederate civilians, to annihilate the plains Indians. In his winter campaign of 1868-69, Sheridan attacked the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes in their…
Read more »By: algol|21 March, 2012|Categories: Western Stories
The shots he heard were too numerous to be a hunter’s work. Maybe Indians had come upon a trapper. Better check it out. If Indians got the trapper, they would be onto him next. Two guns stood a better chance than one, especially when the second wasn’t expected. The firing had stopped as he peered into the creek bed. A…
Read more »By: algol|27 February, 2012|Categories: Western Stories
The Apaches had found his trail. Despite his Kiowa training, he had slipped up. His mistake could cost him his life. His canteen was full from the spring where he had left his horse. He had hoped the Apaches would accept the gift and let him be. But a white man on foot in the desert was too easy prey.…
Read more »Doubts About The Law was published in CHRONICLES, September 2009. “Rawhide” Andrews was a Texas Ranger. He came to the force after it was reconstituted in 1874, the Rangers having been discredited in the years following the War of Yankee Aggression as an enforcement unit for carpetbaggers. Comanches were in decline from smallpox and cholera and from the near extinction…
Read more »How The West Was Restored was published in CHRONICLES, November 2009. He had finally done it. He had mastered the physics of time. He was ready to visit the past. He had made his first fortune in U.S. Treasury bond futures in the early 1980’s. Wall Street had thought that the Reagan tax cuts would drive up interest rates because…
Read more »Correcting A Legal Transaction was published in CHRONICLES, October 2009 The trial was fixed. The judge knew it. The rancher had the town buffaloed. The jury would deliver the verdict the rancher wanted. The judge was concerned that the rancher’s rowdies would use the verdict for a lynching. The rancher didn’t want any more nesters around. The nester’s wife was…
Read more »By: algol|07 October, 2009|Categories: Growing Up In America Series
Privilege Displaces Equality was published in CHRONICLES, October 2009 None of us growing up in Atlanta in the 1940s were under the delusion that we were equal. We were aware of a myriad of differences that had nothing to do with race or gender. Some were better football players. Others were better baseball players. Some could run faster. Others were…
Read more »By: algol|07 August, 2009|Categories: Growing Up In America Series
In 1939, the year I was born, gasoline was ten cents per gallon. A new car cost $700. A new house cost $3,850, and the average rent was $28 per month. Harvard tuition was $420 annually. A loaf of bread from the bakery was eight cents. Hamburger was 14¢ per pound, eggs were 19¢ per dozen, coffee was 40¢ per…
Read more »By: algol|12 May, 2009|Categories: Growing Up In America Series
Anyone who has been around for awhile and who pays any attention to news sees many disturbing changes. Recently I read a news report that two children, ages seven and eight, had an altercation at school during recess. They were carted off handcuffed by police. The teachers or principal had dealt with the boys’ disagreement by bringing in the police.…
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